It was the GTronix 360 Team Renault R.S.01 with Heiko Hammel behind the wheel that took the top time with a last minute lap in practice one of the ADAC Zurich 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, beating the times of the SP9 GT3 machines.
The Renault, running in the SP-X category waited until the last moment to set its lap time of 8:26.703 in what was a challenging session.
The session had started under light rain and the track was wet after previous sessions running in wet conditions, ensuring that the competitors would have a hard time adapting to the changing conditions on the 20.8km track.
The field started on wets as the session got underway just after the scheduled start time of 1:20pm. After 30-degree temperatures on Thursday, the Friday running was running at less than half that with a cool ambient temperature of 14 degrees.
The rain continued to be lighter as the session progressed and came to a complete halt with around one hour left.
The Black Falcon Mercedes showed the pace at the start of the session with the #4 machine of Maro Engel, Adam Christodoulou, Manuel Metzger and Dirk Müller setting a time of 9.43,102. As if to prove the progression of the track through the session, the Renault R.S.01’s time was more than a minute faster.
The drivers, like Audi’s Christopher Hasse, reported that the track conditions were challenging.
“At the beginning of my stint it was still relatively difficult to drive, the ideal line was dry, but the rest was still wet It has dried up fast in the last two laps, but the track is relatively dirty.”
This challenge was also confirmed by Maro Engel from Mercedes and Audi’s Chris Mies who both said that, particularly under wet conditions, the track was very slippery – more so than usual.
As a result it is of little surprise that the runners at the very end, when the track was dryer, put in the best times with seven of the top 10 machines putting their fastest lap in on their final lap.
It is also worth noting that many teams were running to a plan, rather than outright pace, resulting in many top cars being down the field.
The top SP9 runner was the Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3R with Denis Olson behind the wheel. His time of 8:27.853 was more than 1.1 seconds off the Renault but a second faster than Connor de Phillippi in the Rowe Racing BMW M6 GT3.
The top SP10 entry was the BMW M4 GT4 of Walkenhorst Motorsport with Nicolas Pohler setting the 44th best time of 9:35.232.
The fastest TCR was the Hyundai with Peter Terting behind the wheel setting a time of 9:13.163 to end up 33rd overall.
Of the 146 entries, 127 set a representative time in the first session. Of note, the Glickenhaus SCG003c did not venture out on track and the #911 Porsche only put in one flying lap to end up in 41st.
There were also mechanical issues for the #80 Porsche, the #831 Hyundai Motorsport N and the Lexus RCF of Ring Racing with Novel who all pulled up on track and will have a race against time to get back out for the next practice session that will take place at 8:30pm local time tonight.
